A vast equipment gap exists in the mining and construction industries between the tools for manual operation of pneumatic and hydraulic actuated rotary and percussion drilling tools and; the extremely large, complex and expensive machines designed for drilling blast holes, exploration holes, anchor holes and the like in rock and other hard cemented materials or through frozen earth.
Operating the widely used hand-held sinker or rotary drill for these necessary purposes is a dirty, dangerous and exhausting experience that results in gross manpower inefficiency in any more or less continuing mining or construction demolition task. Usually these hand-held tools, including steel drill rods, bits, fluid hoses and fittings gross close to one-hundred pounds and are near the maximum weight that can be manipulated manually, even on downward drilling. Further, in practice, most required drill hole depths are greater than the normal two-foot length attainable manually before changing to longer drill rods. The operator's physical endurance is additionally taxed by then having to unlatch the drill rod, replace it in the hole with the next longer two-foot increment length, lift, relatch and proceed sequence.
Certainly not the least consideration is the danger to the operator in trying to maintain secure footing under conditions of maximum physical exertion. Often in manual operation, footing is precarious, on broken ground, temporary scaffolds, down in a trench, or other adverse conditions.
At the other end of the spectrum are the huge, bulky, heavy, minimum mobility specialty drilling machines which are normally beyond the financial means of the miner or contractor for the usual intermittent tasks.